Yearly Archives: 2003

MAJOR Overhaul

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I finally overhauled the visual gallery to work more how I want it to. This is the beginning of a bunch of refinements to the site that I intend to make.

I now have entries organized by day, so they’ll sit side by side if your resolution can handle it (anything over 1024×768 should do marvelously). I’ve tested the changes in Camino .7 for Mac and IE for Windows 6, both render the changes properly. I also modified how I’m doing the navigation section… it’s a small change visually, but a pretty significant change under the hood. This has not yet propagated to any other page, but it will over time. If you notice something rendering funkily, just leave me a comment, and I’ll fix it.

I’d like to thank Kadyellebee for offering some advice on how to get the photoblog to act how I wanted it to (BTW, blogstyles.com has some great tutorials on this stuff).

I’ll post a real update sometime soon.. there is a lot to talk about.

New Article, Minor Alterations

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I’ve posted a new article in the written portion of the site. The article can be found here.

Additionally, I modified how the visual gallery works: you can now click on the image to be taken to the larger version. The previous method was counter-intuitive.

I’m back from DC, more on that (and the wedding) in an upcoming post.

General Update

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I’m currently down in DC with Mickey, helping her pack up her apartment for the move up to Vermont for the summer. (The move to Seattle comes later.)

It has proven to be an interesting time, with lots of final(???) visits with various groups of her friends, and stressing about the packing process and getting everything done before we head north on the 17th. I really wish I could say I’ve been a big help, but I can’t do so honestly. As much as I want to, other things have unfortunately been eating my days:
1) School. Wrapping up the last vestiges of my previous semester and prepping for the upcoming months of writing (doing a pretty in depth look at the development and administration of online communities). All of which have deadlines occuring while I’m down here.
2) Illness: on the flight down I managed to pick up a nasty little cold that knocked me on my ass for a day or two… which Mickey managed to catch and is STILL not entirely over. Yeah, this is normal, and unfortunate: I catch colds relatively easily, but once caught I get over them much more quickly than most people.
3) Dentistry. A tooth started giving me trouble, so Mickey made an appointment with her dentist down here for me. I got my teeth cleaned and an appointment to get my FOUR cavities filled (it has literally been years since I had dental work done). My appointment was today, and was only half completed before I got sent across town to a DIFFERENT dentist to get a root canal (one of the cavities proved deeper than hoped). I’ve spent about $1400 so far, and expect at least another $300 before I’m done. (Yes, I WOULD appreciate donations, as I have no dental insurance… the paypal button should be on the side of the front page.)

Just overall a very frustrating period. But we’ll get through it.

The wedding is two weeks from yesterday (May 26). Nervous as hell and excited as well: so much to do! And such a big step! But still, overall I’m really looking forward to it.

My friend Eli has made a media database system and has it up on his website and is looking for feedback if anyone has some spare time.

Umm, think that’s it (for now). More later.

Comment Protection

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A minor (but important) bit of site maintenance today… I finally got around to learning how to turn off email address links in the comments section. They were already protected from basic spambots, but were still viewable to the general public.

I’m still not allowing fully anonymous comments, but now the email address is not viewable to the public (and more importantly, to the webcrawlers out there). I’d been meaning to do this for a while, but only just recently had a chance to implement it.

If you really want a way to have people get in touch with you from a comment you leave on this site, leave a URL to your website.

New Images Up

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I finally got around to putting up more images into the images gallery. I will be doing some more in the not too distant future, as well. I had been hesitant to put up that many images until I knew what I was going to do for a watermark system… I now have that set up and automated, so each image has a little translucent “www.nadreck.org” in the lower right corner.

You can find them here.

Games Wishlist

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This is hardly a full list of games I wish would be created, but it is certainly a start.

1. Mega Man as a console first person shooter, ala Metroid Prime and Halo. Think about all the cool weapons and interesting enemies that could be done with this franchise. Far better this than the current rehashed dead-end currently being developed.

2. Starship Troopers as a MMOG. Universal ranking system, platoon “clans”, a combination of rpg elements, FPS, and RTS (at the command level). Something similar is being done currently called “Planetside”, which looks decent, but there is always room for improvement, and this universe is a perfect choice to build from.

3. Third Person MMORPG with graphics and gameplay reminiscient of Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. The graphics in that game were non-photorealistic, which is part of what gave the game its charm. The drive for “realistic” graphics (lots of detail, dark gory characters, ala Warcraft, Diablo, EverQuest, Quake) is in my humble opinion a poorly thought out fad on the part of developers, and needs to go back to being A graphics methodology, not THE graphics methodology.

4. A reassessment and revamp of the concept of “role playing game.” There is a difference between console-rpgs, and pc-rpgs (this is a generalization, there are console style games on the pc, and pc style games on the console), and the difference primarily lies in the design philosophy applied. Originally in console-rpgs, you were essentially playing an interactive book or movie. You were essentially starring in a story, and the steps you take (with the exception of a few optional side quests) are both predetermined and storyboarded. PC-rpgs tend to leave a lot more ambiguity as to the progression of the story, leaving the player with a lot of freedom to develop as he so chooses, doing (at least in theory) what he wants. The PC-RPG seems to be in the lead in terms of number of games coming out, with really only a few (the Final Fantasy series, Xenosaga, Wild Arms, a few others) operating in the console arena. I want to see more games where the emphasis is on the story and characters, cut scenes and all. I have a suspicion that if we want the console-rpg style to survive, it needs to be redefined and delineated from the pc-rpg style.

Heh, ranted a bit more than expected on that last one. Wasn’t even a particular game I’d like to see made… it’s more of a general “I wish THIS would happen in the gaming industry!” So I guess it’s close enough to be on the wishlist.

General Update

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I’m currently at my school residency (I attend Vermont College, which is part of Union Institute and University), which I’ll hopefully find time to write about in the not too distant future, as it is definitely worth of comment. I just wanted to post a quick update as to what’s going on and all.

Some interesting links:
Stealing Andy: this is an interesting band out of Rochester, NY, that has an interesting sound to it. Eric Cox, the lead singer/guitarist is a classmate of mine. He happened to bring some demo cds with him to residency, and I’m pleased with what I hear.
Vermont College: Nice school, with a focus on LEARNING, not grades. Non-traditional, but that’s a good thing. (Again, I’ll write more on it later.)
MindFlight: I’ve had this site listed in my links for ages… it is the fledgling brainchild of a friend of mine. If you have some writing that you’d like to get online, head over there. I’m finally writing a blurb about it because he finally has something on the main page.

Okay, enough for now, more later! (And if you visit, post a comment!)

Online + Console = Buh?

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It is official: I’m a geek. I now have all three of my consoles connected to the internet. Not only that, but it’s WIRELESS. Here’s how:

The three consoles (my GC broadband adapter just came in today) are plugged into a switch which is plugged into my ethernet converter, which communicates wirelessly with my airport station, which also acts as my router for my cable modem. Ta-da, no running cables all over the house.

Of course, I haven’t tested the Auto Modellista online capabilities yet through this set-up… I was on the beta and had connection problems, which they said they were going to fix. So when the actual game gets released, I’m like “woohoo! Online cell shaded racing at its finest!” Flip open the manual to discover that it (supposedly) requires a direct connection to the cable modem, and will not work over a NAT’d router.

What the hell kind of shit is that? Who pays for broadband in order to SOLELY connect it to the PS2? BAD Capcom! No biscuit!

I’m going to test that after I get back from my residency… too busy at the moment.

That php thing…

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I’ve been muttering about switching to an external (and thus dynamic) links file for my list of links, and it has finally been implemented! It was really easy to do. PHP is your friend. Of course, PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you find a broken link. I’m pretty sure I got all of them, but you can never be sure.

Umm, I don’t really have much else to say in the way of an update at the moment. Expect more (visible) changes/additions in the near future.

You’ll also note that I removed Exploitation Now from my links list, and added both Diesel Sweeties and Goats. I did this because Exploitation Now is over (he ended the series, went off to do other stuff), and both DS and Goats are FREAKIN’ HILARIOUS.

Whimper Followup

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Okay, so I got my new drive (thanks LaCie!). It is the same size as the old one, but slightly better… the previous one had been FW&USB, this one is FW&USB2. Hey, I’m all for it… especially since the recovery attempt failed, so the unexpected bus upgrade helps cheer me up.

The recovery attempt cost me $200. When they opened the drive, they discovered that the reader head had broken off and physically shredded the platter, completely eradicating my data. Nothing to be done. At least now I know. If another drive fails in the future, I’ll probably use DriveSavers again… they were expensive (most are), but they were cool enough to not treat me like an idiot.
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